Sunday 18 June 2017

Chronicles of an Armature Trader: Part one - In the Beginning …






I have always been interested in the Global Financial markets ever since I was in campus thanks to watching Bloomberg on satellite T.V. But I really didn’t have an idea of how people traded I always thought, well, you buy the Shares of a good company and later sell them when they appreciate say after 2years or 5years. I began learning about trading/market speculation in early 2016. A friend invited me to a seminar held by one of the popular trading gurus out there who claimed that he was a successful currency trader and a ‘Wealth Coach’  

His speech was quite alluring to those who the get rich quick motivational speakers charm easily. I am a sceptic, got it from my Dad, and sometimes a severe pessimist. Besides I have read a couple of Autobiographies about folks the World considers as wealthy and none of them talk about joining a program conducted by a ‘wealth coach’. Anyway, He talked about Trading currencies and the WONDERFUL thing about it is that you can make profits if a currency appreciates or depreciates and this is what caught my attention since common knowledge dictates that u can’t benefit from something that depreciates, it is simply impossible.  

 At the end of the seminar, on the count of three he promised that the first 50 people to sign up with his organization will be mentored and get to ride on the get rich quick train. He had placed assistants at the back of the Hall, pen and paper in hand ready to take down names. 3,2,1…. the rush to the back of the hall was unbelievable my good friend and a chunk of the audience was already intoxicated by his talk (I could notice this during his presentation especially when the speaker commanded the entire audience to repeatedly say out loud those success adages with vigour like a warrior repeating a War chant-those of us who didn’t participate in the charade, were assumed to ‘not be ready’ for success). My good friend almost knocked me off my chair and mind you, my friend is quite tiny compared to me.

Buuut…after scrambling up to where the ticket man who would give them a ‘free ticket to board the get rich quick train, the speaker told them that they would first have to part with a deposit of $2,500! Which was part of an $8000 fee for the entire mentorship program. Faces sunk, some laughed embarrassingly at their actions, and some scratched their heads. Most of these guys are jobless college graduates, are you asking them to pay for College again? I wondered. Astonishingly enough, the fella did not even talk about how the Global Financial Markets Work! he just went straight ahead to how he can show you his ‘secrets’ to effortlessly grab thousands of dollars in a span of minutes from the Markets, as long as you follow him and His Brokerage Trading Platform (of course with your widely open wallet and probably part of your savings if you were employed).

 Anyway, we went back home discussing about that evening’s event and the ridiculous amount (given the fact that we live in a Third World country that amount was ridiculous). But this did not discourage me from wanting to learn about trading given the fact that I knew one can literally learn a skill via the internet (I learned a lot about hacking Wi-Fi networks and yet I didn’t have a computer programming background). So, I decided to research about trading currencies and trading in general. I scoured the internet and found out that some of the most successful traders were college dropouts or didn’t go to college and that a large majority of them including graduates did not have a background in Finance. This encouraged my pursuit of learning how to trade besides, it would be a way of starting a business and I had always wanted to start a business, be my own Boss I just didn’t know what kind and trading FX offered an opportunity… (to be continued)

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